The Tablet Show

The Tablet Show interviews can now be heard every Wednesday on .NET Rocks! at http://dotnetrocks.com. Same great content, different website. This show is a five minute explanation by Richard and Carl.

Carl & Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about the latest incarnation of CSLA - version 4.5.5. The conversation starts out with a thorough refresher on CSLA, building business objects in portable, maintainable ways. Really portable - the objects even on run on phones! Rocky talks about making CSLA run on Android phones via Xamarin, but not on iOS - because of specific Apple rules. The conversation also dives into CSLA on tablets and tablets in the enterprise in general. It's a cool time to be a developer!

While at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, Carl and Richard sat down with Todd Morrison to talk about his experiences building sophisticated media apps using HTML, CSS and Javascript. The conversation starts out on HBO2Go, a Vertigo project to provide a 'second screen' experience around HBO on the XBox. From there, Todd digs into the continued evolution of web technologies, how responsive web design goes beyond dealing with different screen sizes and into different input options like touch and gesture, as well as screen distances - how does the ten-foot experience of the XBox change your interaction with the application? Lots of great thinking from someone at the leading edge of web apps!

Carl and Richard talk to Greg Shackles about his experiences building Olo - an online ordering platform for restaurants. Greg starts the conversation talking about the decision to move from a different mobile platform over to Xamarin so that they could provide support for the largest diversity of devices with the largest common code base. The conversation also digs into MvvmCross, a library for utilizing the MVVM pattern across multiple platforms - Greg takes advantage of MvvmCross to minimize the amount of unique code for each platform. Great case study of the potential of Xamarin!

Carl and Richard talk to Jacob Rossi from the Internet Explorer team about his experiences helping to develop HTML standards like Pointer Events. Jacob talks about how the HTML standards continue to evolve to deal with the changes in computing, including the diversification of input devices - how do you deal with mouse, pen, touch and gesture in a uniform way, while also taking advantage of the distinctive capabilities of each input method? The conversation digs into how the various browser makers, including Chrome and Mozilla (Firefox) work together to develop these standards, creating implementations in the browsers to test in the field, and then carry the learnings back to the group. We may only hear about how they compete in the market, but at the same time, they all work together to make the web a better place!

Carl and Richard talk to Justin Esgar about everything that goes into building a successful mobile app - not just development! Justin talks about his experiences building a variety of different mobile apps, mostly on the iOS platform. He digs into the challenges of getting a good idea together, outsourcing various services (including development), how to get your app accepted in the AppStore, how to actually market your app effectively, and what success looks like. Much of what Justin has done is in his book Appitalize on Your Idea, links in the show notes!

Carl and Richard talk to Domenic Denicola about his experiences taking HTML beyond HTML 5. The conversation starts out talking about Domenic's experiences getting WebKit working inside the Nook to implement the reader. Then it moves to WinJS - Domenic worked on a textbook reader for Windows 8 using WinJS. Domenic talks about the challenges of the 1.0 version of WinJS, working around testing limitations, and the open source libraries that Barnes and Noble built to solve the problems. And then the conversation digs deep into the next generation of HTML - Domenic talks about dynamic elements and how HTML continues to evolve. Great thinking about how to keep HTML technology moving forward!

At the Portland stop of the ModernApps2013 road trip, Carl and Richard talked to Shawn Wildermuth about his experiences building mobile apps across multiple platform (iOS, Android, Windows). Shawn talks about the advantages and disadvantages of straight native development, native development with tools like Xamarin, and hybrid development with PhoneGap/Cordoba/Icenium. Having customers with every solution, Shawn digs into the nitty gritty details of each development approach. There's no one right way!

While at the San Francisco stop of the ModernApps2013 road trip, Carl and Richard talk to Beth Massi about building mobile apps with LightSwitch. The conversation starts out with an explanation of Microsoft LightSwitch, which is part of Visual Studio and focuses on making data-over-forms apps really easy to build. Beth digs into how LightSwitch creates HTML 5 clients and now has an option to create a responsive web design client using jQuery mobile, so that you can automatically make great mobile clients for your apps. The conversation digs into a variety of cool features of LightSwitch, including its ability to work with Azure, SharePoint, Office 365 and more!

While in Los Angeles for the ModernApps2013 tour, Carl and Richard talked to Lino Tadros about building tablet and phone applications across all the platforms. Lino talks about the different cross-platform choices, including Xamarin's technology, as well as the HTML-driven PhoneGap/Cordova technology. What's the right way to build your app? Lino discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each of these approaches, as well as some deeper concepts on what it means to build a quality application.

At the San Diego stop of the Modern Apps 2013 road trip, Carl and Richard sat down with Tony Surma to talk about his experiences building mobile and tablet apps for disaster relief organizations. Tony talks about Humanitarian Toolbox and it's efforts to build open source software for disaster relief. The conversation digs into the right way to build mobile software across all the platforms, and the specific changes needed to make apps work effectively in disaster scenarios. And a big shout out to all developers, testers and designers to help save the world at Humanitarian Toolbox!

At the Austin stop of the #ModernApps2013 road trip, Carl and Richard chat with Phil Japikse about building Windows 8.1 applications. But first, a serious conversation about disaster relief and the Humanitarian Toolbox - Phil talks about leading one of the open source projects for helping disaster relief professionals get up to speed on a given disaster site. Then the conversation turns to how organizations are building Windows 8.1 apps. What are the differences between 8.0 and 8.1? What are the breaking changes, and how do you get up and running in the new model? Lots to think about here.

While at the Dallas stop of the #ModernApps2013 road trip, Carl and Richard chat with Chris Love about all things mobile... this is a wide ranging conversation about the things that Chris is most concerned about in today's modern app world. Chris digs into how enterprises are (or are not) dealing with mobile development, where tablets fit into the equation, and how big an impact the diversity of OSes is having on development. And what about mobile first web design, anyway? Lots of great thinking!

While at NDC in London, Carl and Richard talk to Brandon Satrom about building hybrid mobile applications and their advantages and disadvantages around native apps. Brandon digs into the different deployment models of mobile applications, as well as the challenge of keeping many mobile platforms up to date at once. Lots of comparisons of apps between all the platforms - iOS, Android, Windows Phone and more!

While at NDC-London, Carl and Richard talk to Jon Skeet about his experience using C# everywhere - including mobile development! The conversation starts out talking about Jon's top topic of the past couple of years, Async and Await. Jon then digs into developing noda-time, a .NET implementation of Joda Time. This leads to a great conversation about Xamarin's tools for building iOS and Android apps and how C# can live everywhere. Jon talks through the fun parts and the hard parts of building mobile apps and his plans for cool new cross platform development. It's a different side of Jon Skeet!

While at the Philly Code Camp at Penn State, Carl and Richard talk to Atley Hunter about how he gets users to use his mobile apps and how he keeps them - and gets them to pay!

In between #ModernApps2013 Road Trip legs, Carl and Richard got a chance to chat with Glenn Howes about his experiences building children's applications for the iPhone. At the Apple World Wide Developer Conference in 2013, Apple announced a kid store for iPhone and iPad. Glenn talks about trying to get his app into the store when it launched - but discovers a number of poorly defined hurdles that Apple added to create a sense of safety for parents.

At the Philly Code Camp stop of the ModernApps2013 Road Trip, Carl and Richard talk to Jeff Fritz about building mobile web apps using ASP.NET web forms. No, really! Jeff talks about how with some simple changes, ASP.NET web forms works just fine on smartphones, so that you can keep the goodness of web controls in your app while getting rid of the evil of postbacks and the like. The conversation also digs into SignalR, jQuery and the latest round of devices... lots of mobile geekiness!

While on the ModernApps2013 Road Trip stop in Raleigh-Durham, Carl and Richard talk to Aaron Bockover about his experiences building multi-device, cloud centric applications - aka, modern apps. Aaron talks about being part of the rdio team, a music streaming app available for variety of platforms that allows you to move your music stream from device-to-device, controlling one device with another. Working with multiple devices is a hallmark of modern apps, and Aaron digs into what looks easy on the outside, but is deadly hard on the inside.

On the Hybrid US Tour, Carl and Richard talk to Chris Hardy about using Xamarin tools with Visual Studio 2013. The conversation starts out around the Xamarin announcements with Visual Studio 2013, including deeper integration within the Studio environment and a price break for MSDN subscribers. Chris also digs into some other important details related to the Studio 2013 launch, including the change of licensing for the Portable Class Libraries so that they can be used on iOS and Android devices. Lots of discussion around the kinds of mobile apps to build, comparing games to productivity, B2B and B2C. With Xamarin, it's a C# World!

While at Øredev in Malmö, Sweden, Carl and Richard talk to Jen Meyers about developers being able to design. The conversation starts out talking about different UI designs in tablets and phones, including iOS7. Jen digs into the idea that design is just not that difficult - developers need to learn some things to work with designers or to implement any designs at all. And there's plenty for designers to learn too! UX design is its own unique science, and everyone involved has to learn to be effective.

Carl and Richard talk to Josh Johnson about mobile development and testing. Initially the conversation digs into iOS7 - the biggest revision to iOS since its launch. Then it's time to talk testing. Josh starts at the beginning, talking about different styles of testing, from unit to integration to acceptance testing. Josh explains how Calaba.sh works, adding a framework to your app to deploy down to the phone to do testing. Right on the phone! The conversation continues along the lines of various testing processes, including a discussion on Xamarin Test Cloud and Less Painful. Your mobile apps need to be tested too!

Mark Miller flies to Dublin to tell the world exactly what's wrong with iOS7. A passion user experience designer, Mark dives into the nitty gritty of consistent UI design, where iOS7 gets it right, where its wrong, and how it compares to the Windows 8 design. No UI is perfect, but some are less perfect than others! Mark brings a very funny look into what great UI can look like.

Carl and Richard talk to John Breslin about his experiences building companies in Ireland. Starting in the 90s, John was involved with internet technologies from the beginning. The conversation digs into how the internet and people's relationship with it has evolved, as well as how the companies themselves have changed. Think startups are just in the Silicon Valley? Think again!

Carl and Richard moderate a panel discussion on the state of mobile development with Todd Anglin, Lino Tadros, Gill Cleeran and Laurent Bugnion. The conversation starts out comparing the latest incarnations of hybrid development and native development, includng how technologies like Xamarin fit into the equation. The panelists also dig into the enterprise development story for phones and tablets and where Bring Your Own Device is going.

Carl and Richard talk to Kirby Turner about his experiences building iPad applications. A former .NET developer, Kirby switched over to iOS development when he bought a Mac. The conversation starts out talking about the differences between building iPhone and iPad apps. Kirby talks about the user interaction differences - where you are and how you hold the device matters a lot! Beyond consumer apps, Kirby also digs into how to handle private apps for relatively few number of iPads (less than one hundred). Check out the links for information about Kirby's book on building iPad apps!

Carl and Richard chat with Michael Crump about his experiences migrating Windows Phone 7.1 apps to Windows Phone 8. The conversation starts out with a short recap on some of the recent craziness around Nokia and Microsoft and the calibre of phones and tablets coming out these days - it's time for the second wave of Win 8 devices! Michael digs into the benefits and challenges around switching to Windows Phone 8, including access to new resources, dealing with multiple screen resolutions and buildings apps where the code base can be largely shared between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. It's time to make the move! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!

Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about the differences between consumer and business apps in the mobile and tablet space. Rocky has been thinking a lot about how we build applications for different purposes and discusses it with the boys. The conversation digs into native vs HTML, common (or branded) UI design vs. device-specific UI and more! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!

Carl and Richard talk to Michael Perry about his efforts to design mobile application that are resilient when they disconnect, reconnect and deal with erratic connectivity. Michael takes the problem apart, working through all the key concepts needed to tolerate being occasionally disconnected, culminating in a discussion of his open source library called Correspondence. Check it out! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!

Time for a bit of gossip? Carl and Richard bring Mary Jo on the show to talk about all the crazy changes around Microsoft. What does the merger between Nokia and Microsoft mean? Does Surface have a chance? Who will be the next CEO of Microsoft? MJ and the boys talk about these questions and more! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!

Wow - 100 shows! Carl and Richard think back over the past two years of Tablet Shows, from October 2011 to September 2013. What's changed and what's remained the same? Any breakthroughs? Any surprises? Any idea what's going to happen 100 shows from now? Thanks for listening - we couldn't do it without you! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!

Carl and Richard talk to Jason Ostrander about his experiences building Android tablet applications. The conversation starts out talking about the differences of building in Java on the desktop versus mobile and tablet devices - being far more resource constrained and performance sensitive. Jason also digs into his experiences with Android OS fragmentation, as well as building the software that ships with the Barnes and Noble Nook device. The Android ecosystem is alive and well, and there's lots of stuff to build!

Carl and Richard talk to Jeremy Freeley and Alan O'Connor about their experiences building Road Buddy for Windows Phone 8. Road Buddy uses the GPS and accelerometer data from the phone to determine if you are in a car accident and contact emergency services with your location, nature of the impact and medical information. Jeremy and Alan talk about how they built the application, the challenges in integrating via text message with emergency services, their involvement with Imagine Cup and a whole host of other issues around getting to market with a cool mobile application.

Carl and Richard talk to Bart Read and Kevin Boyle about building hybrid mobile apps using Cordova. Cordova is the Apache open source version of PhoneGap, which was purchased by Adobe a few years back. The conversation digs into a variety of products built to utilize Cordova, all with the goal of making it easier to build mobile and tablet applications across multiple platforms with one code base.

Carl and Richard talk to Ben Buttigieg about building Nokia Music. Ben talks about working with Nokia to bring a great music service to market for both Windows Phone and Windows 8. The conversation digs into the public APIs available to build your own applications on the platforms that utilize the metadata and music services of Nokia Music.

Carl and Richard talk to Chris Hardy from Xamarin about his experience building an application for Windows Phone and then migrating it to iPhone and Android. Chris talks about his Days Until Xmas app he first built for Windows Phone. The conversation digs into the differences in building UI between the different phones (it's harder than you think!) and what code can actually be shared between projects. Chris has put the iOS version of the app up on GitHub so you can take it out for a spin!

Carl and Richard talk to Jim McKeeth about programming in Delphi to build tablet applications for iOS. Yeah, that Delphi? What, you thought it went away? Delphi has changed hands a couple of times, but has continued to evolve and work with modern development practices, Internet technologies, etc. Jim describes the entire development environment, how you can build native iOS apps with the tools, and soon to build Android apps as well! Could Delphi be the enterprise tablet development solution?

Carl and Richard talk to Jeff Morgan about testing mobile applications. Jeff references his Lean Dog book Cucumber and Cheese - a Testers Workshop. The conversation starts out with the idea of Acceptance Test Driven Development, involving not just testers and developers, but all the stakeholders, including domain experts, operations people and more! Jeff talks about Gherkin, the near-natural language for describing requirements (and tests) not only in English, but 40 other languages! While the focus is on mobile testing, all testing is well served by the idea of acceptance focus.

Carl and Richard talk to Shawn Wildermuth about his experiences building mobile applications - first! The conversation starts out with the challenges of making mobile web applications that work well. Web pages have gotten too large to load quickly or render effectively, HTTP Archive says in 2013 the average page size is 1.2MB! Shawn digs into how to architect a page so that it sends down the mobile version first, fast and light for a phone, but also usable on a regular browser, and then load additional resources if the browser is capable. Great discussions on dealing with retina displays and bandwidth restrictions as well. Time to evolve your web page design!

Carl and Richard talk to Rob Daigneau about building backend services for mobile applications. The conversation starts out talking about service design patterns, the different approaches to creating services so that they are reliable, scalable and performance. Rob digs into the differences between SOAP/WSDL and REST, TCP and UDP and more. Many of these technologies are years old now, but today in the mobile-first world they're hugely important. The tools are getting better!

At NDC, Carl and Richard talk to Gill Cleeren about his experiences building a Windows 8 tablet application for Belgian television. The conversation starts out talking about the specifics of the application, available for iOS and Android as well. Gill talks about the challenges of implementing DRM in Windows 8 (as compared to Silverlight) and mentions the Microsoft Media Player Framework as a good starting point. From there the discussion digs into the challenges of the cable companies in distributing content, how piracy factors into the business and the risk of disintermediation - how to stay relevant in a ever more connected, global world.

While at NDC, Carl and Richard talk to Laurent Bugnion about his experiences building tablet applications. Laurent and his company have been building tablet and mobile applications for a variety of companies over the past few years. The conversation starts out on tools, talking about C#/XAML vs. WinJS development (C# is winning) and the focus of Windows 8.1 support. Laurent also talks about the success of the Portable Class Libraries, Xamarin support for C# in iOS and Android and more.

While at DevTeach, Carl and Richard started out recording a panel discussion on the state of mobile development in a bar... but it was too noisy. So the actual panel part of the discussion moved to a quiet part of the hotel. The panelists talk about the differences between developing for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Everyone was pro-native, so the web development discussion part was short. Comparing and contrasting the different app stores was good fun also. The state of mobile development of strong!

Carl and Richard talk to Colin Bowern about his experiences developing web applications in the enterprise. Colin talks about how web got into the enterprise in the first place, and how far behind most enterprises are with their web applications. And yes, IE6 gets mentioned. The conversation digs into the strengths and weaknesses of building mobile and tablet applications using web vs. native, as well as other enterprise considerations like security and policy models. Is web really enterprise ready? Colin thinks so!

Carl and Richard circle back with the great Billy Hollis about UX design. The conversation starts out with a discussion on styling specific to the mobile OS vs. styling by brand. From there, Billy digs into different design concepts, discussing the value of metaphors that help users understand your software's behavior. There is design everywhere, you just have to learn to see it!

Carl and Richard talk to Rob Bazinet about building iOS applications. One of the applications that Rob discusses is a pallative care application for the iPad that allows people who are in remote care homes routinely communicate with their doctor how they are feeling without the doctor having to go to see the patient directly.